Another Grief Observed

In these days, I have, for the most part, been unable to formulate words of prayer to God. This is not to say that I don't think of Him sometimes. It's just that I have nothing to say. Just as He seems to have nothing to say to me. "What about petition?" Well, what can I ask for? I did a lot of petition, before. We all did. I'm exhausted asking for things. And even if " it is lawful to pray for whatever it is lawful to desire ," what is there to desire? The thing I want—to go back to the past, to have Heidi not to have died—is among the things that even omnipotence cannot do , a "thing" without thingitude. Should I then ask for something else? Should I ask to get through the grief? To feel joy again? To "move on"? You all know I cannot do that yet. In my widower's brain, I cannot yet understand getting through the grief as anything other than abandoning Heidi—and that I cannot do. Lewis speaks about this: ...we want something else...

 Note: Feel free to skip this one. I imagine most posts in the future will be not as "in the thick of it."   I did not know that some things would be worse after the first month. I guess I see why Lewis started writing then. I expected that, eventually, the mornings would become like the evenings , losing their special sadness as we reached our new normal. I did not expect that it would work the other way around. No matter how normalized the evenings have become, I guess I am suffering shock at the fact that Heidi still does not come back. My instincts seemed to be working under the impression that she would return if we just made things right at home. I also expected not to feel angry this time around. That was just hasty. It can be a dangerous thing to allow expression to one's anger. Angry people know they are right, and, as one wise person put it to me, "One is never so eloquent as when he is angry." Thus, I will be intentional in trying to keep this short....

Well, looks like we're in full "wrestle" mode now. Am I angry at God? Many have told me that it's OK to express my anger at God. The Psalms, Jeremiah, perhaps even Job, furnish us with inspired examples. And I know that God knows the frame he gave us; that anger itself is an indifferent, even if risky, emotion. I also know that Lewis allowed himself some anger. Those were the most moving parts of his book, bringing me to tears: Meanwhile, where is God?... When you are happy, so happy that you have no sense of needing Him,... if you remember yourself and turn to Him with gratitude and praise, you will be — or so it feels — welcomed with open arms. But go to Him when your need is desperate, when all other help is vain, and what do you find? A door slammed in your face, and a sound of bolting and double bolting on the inside. After that, silence. You may as well turn away. The longer you wait, the more emphatic the silence will become. There are no lights in the windows....

Today is Valentine's Day. A day that meant more to Heidi than I think most who knew her would expect. It is also this day that marks one month since her death. So it shall be at 5:28 PM. It is possible that some of you, reading what I have written, imagine a soul in a state of paralysis or constant gloom. No need to worry. In fact, one blessing of this exercise is that I can more freely move on to necessary or unnecessary activity. I can isolate, package up, and save my more somber thoughts, and thus be delivered from the need to cycle through them constantly, lest they dissipate forever. Those who see me know better. I am able, for better of for worse, to laugh and smile and do stuff. Over the past five weeks, I have had at least three people tell me that they know I am "strong." That was the word they used. Now, make no mistake: it helped to hear it. In my life dealing with young people, I know the principle that affirmation tends to supply or multiply its object, as a ...

I looked back at my last post. I noticed the strange reversal of these days, a reversal of all the symbolism that literature and liturgy make of the rotations of this, our planet. For normally, mornings mean hope, and the evening is the harbinger of the "terrors of the night." But for me in these days, the evenings are tinged with hope, and the mornings are when I feel the most powerless. There is a good reason for this. Unreality. Unreality scares us. Most of the time, the dreams of sleep are more unreal than our daily lives. And so there can be a dark foreboding as we are forced to enter a state where we lose much control of our thought and sensation. " Procul recedant somnia, et noctium phantasmata ." But for the bereaved—or at least for Lewis and myself—the day feels more unreal than the dreams of night. Lewis makes the connection when speaks of his experience as a "nightmare unreality." His lived experience is comparable to a fearful dream. Similarly,...

 Then Heidi died. A new phase began. I did not expect that. From the time came when I knew she was going to die, I thought I was already experiencing all that I would experience. But while Heidi was in the hospital, there was still the chance to be with her, physically, next to each other in space. In spite of all pain, thanks to the generosity of work and family, there was at least one joy I had each day: coming back to her every dawn. It was with a spring in my step each day that I got out of the parking structure, hastened to the elevator, and walked speedily, but softly, into her room on floor 7. I was home. All in spite of her apparent lack of consciousness. All in spite of the prospects for the future. For these days, there was only the present. Being at my wife's side was, I am quite sure, the most living-in-the-present-moment that I have ever done in my life. She was present. I was able to hold her in her last minutes. Then it all changed. My life's mission that had gon...

Then there was—is—the sorrow for Heidi herself, for her own sufferings. In his own work, CS Lewis says the following: And I can believe He is a vet when I think of my own suffering. It is harder when I think of hers. What is grief compared with physical pain? Whatever fools may say, the body can suffer twenty times more than the mind... What sort of a lover am I to think so much about my affliction and so much less about hers? I think Lewis is being hard on himself. It is quite evident to me that, at least in the beginning, his own wife's sufferings were topmost in his mind. The same was true for me. Sorrow for myself only came later. As Heidi approached death, my pain, my intense pain was about her suffering. It is true that she was sedated and on medications. But we really don't know what she experienced. And I guess it wasn't just her physical pain that caused us so much grief. It was really... everything, everything this rather horrible disease was doing to her body. I...

Thanks for your helpful comments. Some of you have said that it is ok for me to be a little more honest, to "wrestle with God" a little. Oh, don't worry: that's coming. In these records, I am basically proceeding in a sort of chronological order. Time for writing is scarce, but, in reality, the thoughts cycle continuously. And yet there are stages of predominant thoughts. And I am recording those stages in the approximate order that they happened, even though they are not the stage I am in now. The exercise, perhaps, could be what St. John of the Cross would call a purgation of memory, as much as it is anything else. I am, as Lewis said, recording "one thought in a hundred", one at a time. Before the wrestling with God, and after the gratitude for the good that so many were doing for me, I would say what came next was an outward-turned sorrow. I felt sorry for other people. (My brother and my sister pointed this out to me). I have already expressed how sorr...

 Lewis began his reflections more than a month after the death of his spouse. He was in the thick of it. I am starting a bit earlier. But I also have some catch-up to do. In reality, the deep grief is the most recent part of my experience, the experience of these latter days. My initial feelings in all of this were not so dark. Gratitude went first. That may sound strange, but so many people were helping me and supporting me while Heidi was in the hospital, that much of my time was filled with gratitude—even in the time when I knew Heidi's condition was one from which we would all never recover. And so, to be as accurate as possible, these reflections should begin there. Some of these posts will not reflect so much my daily bread of tears (Ps. 80:5), but more my memory of the early stages. Gratitude went first. And so, to my family: Thank you all so much for the support you have given me. To Heidi's side of the family : I am so sorry that you lost a wonderful daughter, a wise s...

 My first post smacked of self-pity. That will happen sometimes. Following Lewis's example (more on that later), I am going to make explicit attempts to get outside myself as well in this forum. Let me begin by posting the tribute to Heidi I wrote on the day of her death, January 14. It was originally on the CaringBridge , but I don't know if it will stay there forever. And it is good to begin at the beginning: Rest in peace Heidi Laurelle Fenton Keiser was born on July 8, 1979 to Charles "Chuck" Fenton and Karen Tetzloff Fenton, the oldest of their three daughters. She lived her childhood in Ypsilanti, MI, and went to Huron High in Ann Arbor, MI. She studied Anthropology and Sociology at the University of Michigan. Always a deep thinker who took her faith very seriously, Heidi began studying theology at Sacred Heart Seminary in Detroit. Wanting to pursue an eventual pontifical degree, she went to the Angelicum in Rome, Italy, for the intensive one year propaedeutic p...

To all who have been praying for me and my family, supporting me and my family, wondering about me and my family, I apologize for my radio silence up to now. In the beginning, I just needed the silence and the time to be absorbed in grief. Please know that I am very grateful for all that you all have done. My silence does not signify annoyance or ingratitude. As many of you have mentioned, a new stage now begins. The funeral is over; most have gone home. All must continue to lead their normal lives. We (my family and I) try. But "normal" is not coming back for us. After the gracious hospitality of the Archibalds, we moved back to our home in Rockford to begin to figure out a new normal. And that brings a whole new stage of grief. The kids seem to be doing fine. I am amazed at their resilience. They are so good . But the return has been very hard for me. So many thoughts, so much sadness. And denial. I see it in me. This can't really be happening. At some point, my Heidi w...